A Universal Port (UP), which is a port-based design technology applied to a Multi Control Unit (MCU), implements a function of viewing different multi-pictures at various conference sites on the premise of improving the media processing capability of the MCU, so as to satisfy individualized requirements of different conference sites.
Generally, there are two or more conference sites in a video conference. In multi-picture technology, the MCU combines pictures of a plurality of conference sites into one picture and sends the picture to each of video terminals of the conference sites. The principles of the multi-picture technology are as follows: the MCU decodes pictures of different video formats, bandwidths and protocols from different conference sites by using the coding and decoding capabilities of a chip of the MCU, and then combines and codes the pictures as required by a user and sends the pictures to each of video terminals of the conference sites. In this way, pictures of a plurality of conference sites may be viewed in a picture displayed by video terminals of one conference site.
At present, MCU resources are limited, and a conventional method is that the same multi-picture is viewed at all conference sites, thereby saving MCU decoding resources. An UP idea is proposed as the MCU processing capability is improved, thus a different multi-picture may be freely selected to be viewed at any conference site as required by the conference site. In such case, however, many resources need to be consumed.